Related Stories

The four-year-old dog had been rescued by Wayne Whalen while the Fort Erie man was in New Orleans last spring.

Whalen was a groom in the horse racing industry and fell in love with the Boxer mix while he was in Louisiana for work.

The cliché of a dog being man's best friend was certainly true for Whalen and Winston.

When Whalen dropped his dog off at his aunt and uncle's house in Fort Erie in November, neither could have known it would be the last time they'd see each other.

Whalen, a well-known face on the backstretch at Fort Erie Race Track, died Monday morning in a training accident involving a horse in Charles Town, West Virginia.

As many grooms do during the Canadian winters, the 27-year-old had been working for a Niagara-based trainer in the U.S. since November.

It's believed Whalen died instantly after being kicked by a horse he was loading into a training pool.

“This whole week he couldn't wait to come home to spend time with the family,” said Whalen's aunt Claudia Rabstein.

She said Whalen's parents are too distraught to speak publicly about their son's death.

“They're a mess,” she said. “He was in a really good place in his life. He had the whole world to live for.”

Rabstein said Whalen had grown up hanging out with family members who worked at the Fort Erie Race Track stables.

As an adult, he worked as a training rider working out horses in the mornings and for the track itself saddling the thoroughbreds on race days.

“He was a kind, bright young man with a great future ahead of him,” said Elissa Blowe, Fort Erie Race Track's media and marketing manager. “We're all a family and this is a big loss to our community.”

Blowe said the Whalen family is a big part of the track's backstretch.

“The people at the track become your family,” she said. “It feels like we go through this an awful lot and when it's someone so young, it makes it hard to swallow.”

Police told reporters in West Virginia they were called for the discovery of a body at a property not far from the Charles Town race track at 7:20 a.m. Monday.

"We believe it to be a horse accident,” Jefferson County Sheriff's Department Sgt. Ronald Fletcher told The Journal. “Basically, a horse kicked him in the head. That appears to be the cause of death, but it's under investigation right now,"

An autopsy will be done to verify the cause of death and then Whalen's body will be brought back to Canada for a burial in Fort Erie, Rabstein said.

Since word spread of Whalen's death Monday, the family has been flooded with condolences.

“The outpouring of love from all over North America and around the world - I'm just in awe,” said Rabstein, adding that funeral arrangements have not yet been finalized.

A memorial service is also being planned for Charles Town, where Whalen and many other Canadian horse industry workers had been living the past few weeks.

“He has a huge group of friends and everyone is pretty devastated,” Rabstein said.

“Everything he learned, he learned it well,” Blowe said. “In our business, he was really working his way up the ladder. This is something that will deeply affect us.”